Operation Hope Not (4)

In this final extract from the archives commemorating the 50th anniversary of Churchill's funeral ("Operation Hope Not") on 30 January, we show one simple letter from Churchill's daughter Mary, which sums up, better than anything else, Churchill's place in our history.

Mary, who was married to the diplomat Christopher Soames, and was to become a notable author (and DBE) in her own right, wrote this letter some seven months before her father's death, in the summer of 1964. It is a moving farewell to "a loving, generous father", in contrast to all the grandeur of the state occasion which was to come.